General skill changes suggestions

[Mateusz 36]

Hello im Bigego from eu emerald.

Here are some of my thoughts and ideas for skill changes based on years of playin as a pvp focused barb. To gather all of following info i tested many different skill and eq builds as well as done alot of arenas/raids/gvgs/open world pvps vs every possible class in the game. 

 

 

 Last Wish: When health is reduced to H% from the maximum, the damage received by the character is reduced on D% for 8 sec. Cannot trigger more often than once per 90 sec.

First and very simple change that every barb in the game is waiting for, reset cd of last wish after arena. We are not asking for reset after death bcs that would be propably too broken, but reset cd after arena wouldnt have any negative outcome, its impossible to abuse that, it would change the fact that last wish basically always works in 1 out of 2 arenas only. Imagine we have expert lvled to 4/4 and can use it in 50% of arenas only. 

 

 Stone Skin: Every T sec, the character accumulates the "Stone skin" buff. The effect allows you to ignore D% of the damage from the next auto-attack or skill that deals instant damage. Blocked damage instantly accumulates one effect, but no more than once every 2 sec.

Skill that is fine in general in my personal opinion as long as u use 1h, however it becomes totaly useless and gives 0 deff when we use 2h. Someone may say there is talent that gives stone buff if we parry, but noone use that talent with 2h since we need "fury" talent in that case. So it just doesnt work in any way for 2h.

My suggestion is to add some perma % dmg reduction while using 2h or % dmg redu based on our hp (similiar to paladin skill) while using 2h.

 

 Berserker Power: Applies the "Berserk power" buff to the character for the duration of the skill. The effect increases the "Penetration" parameter by R%, as well as the "Attack speed" parameter by R% if equipped with a one-handed weapon, and the physical power of the character by R% - if equipped with a two-handed weapon. During the effect, any incoming damage dealt to the character increases by D% and the maximum amount of health decreases by H%. Permanent skill.

Skill that is crucial for 2h build and 1h speed oriented builds aswell. However the debuffs we are getting from skill which are -15% hp and 10% more dmg taken makes 2h barb a paper without any deff since stone doesnt work for 2h and last wish doesnt reset every arena and lasts for 8 secs only then we are naked without anything to save us from getting bursted. 

My suggestion is to lower % of debuffs or delete both or 1 of them. Its worth to notice barb is propably the only class in the game thats getting debuffed while buffing. 

 

 Scream of Fury: Decreases the "Penetration" parameter by P% for all enemies within 2 yards of the character and increases the character’s "Block” parameter by B% for T sec. The maximum number of player targets is Y and the number of monster targets is unlimited.

Skill that in theory may look usefull but in reality there are 0 barbs using it. Skill doesnt rly buff our deff, is easy to resist + debuff isnt that op aswell, also duration time is low. In the end completely noone use that skill bcs there are no benefits from putting skill points into it. 

I dont have any specific idea in my mind right now but for sure that skill need to be completely reworked, for example some party buff may be added or 2h deff skill or aoe dmg, there are so many options that would work for barb. 

 

 Bloodshed: The "Warcry" skill additionally applies the "Bleeding" debuff to all opponents for 9 sec. The effect deals periodic damage of 33% of the character's physical strength every 3 sec.

Dmg should be increased while lvling up warcry skill or change it for instant dmg aoe skill with %dmg depending on skill lvl. I covered that in previous post. 

 

 

 Combat Fury: Deals the "Combat frenzy" buff to the character for T sec. The effect increases the "Accuracy" parameter by A%, restores H% health from maximum instantly and J% health from maximum every 3 sec. for 12 sec.

My suggestion is to give heal over time effect from the skill to whole party. I covered that in previous post aswell. 

 

 Charge: The character instantly moves to the enemy from a distance of two or more yards, deals physical damage in the amount of P% of the physical strength of the character and deals the "Stun" effect for T sec. The effect does not allow to move, attack or use skills

I suggest to add % chance for aoe stun or dmg to enemies around target. I mentioned that in previous post too. 

 

 Warcry+

Increases the strength of the skill's buff effect by 2 \ 4 \ 6%.

Very useless talent, its not neccesary in pve and completely useless in pvp, i suggest to increase effect of bloodshed talent aswell. 

 

 Strong plates

Increases the character's maximum health by 3% and reduces incoming damage to the character by 1,5% for each heavy armor equipped.

As long as hp buff is good, dmg redu % is basically unnoticable. Since the whole "defense" branch is oriented to make us more tanky i would like to notice there are actually not many talents that gives us real tankiness comparing to other tank classes branches like dk or wd or pala. 

I suggest to increase dmg redu % from 1.5% per heavy pc equipped to 2.5%.

 

 Execution

Increases additional damage from the “Defeat” skill against targets with the “Bleeding” effect by 5% per effect, up to a maximum of 20%. Guaranteed to inflict a critical hit with a skill if the target has 4 or more “Bleeding” effects, it is impossible to dodge, parry, or block the strike.

 Bloodletting

Basic attacks and skills that deal instant damage have a 25% chance to inflict an additional Bleeding debuff on the enemy for 8 seconds. The effect deals physical damage equal to 20% of the character's physical strength every 2 seconds. The maximum number of effects from the talent on a single target is 4.

I want to cover both talents at once bcs they are highly connected. As long as we wont get bleeds from bloodletting we cant get any benefit from execution talent. Its good move to give us some dmg oriented branch that would buff our dmg abit for 2h in pvp and pve. However the whole branch is too much based on luck. The bloodletting talent in most cases wont let us get 3 or 4 bleeds or it takes too much time to get them. Alot of times we put just 1 bleed on enemy untill we get stunned or our enemy manage to move away from us or will just die(especially in dgs when mobs dieing so fast), in that case 2 main key talents of dmg branch give us 5% more dmg on 1 skill and 1 weak dot in total and that happens alot in pvp and pve. 

My suggestion is to make both key talents less luck based. As an example can change dmg buff in execution talent for 7% from each bleed and make it works with 3 bleeds max instead of 4. Dmg output will be the same but it will be easier to get max bleeds needed for execution talent. Can do pretty same with bloodletting, increase % chance to inflict bleed and increase bleed dmg but make it 3 bleeds max from talent. In current state its almost impossible to use those talents in its full potential. 

 

I also want to bring last years rebalance developers commentary. 

Developer commentary: Recently, the Barbarian has added abilities to their combat arsenal that greatly increase their offensive potential. Since this direction is showing great results, we want to continue the hybrid development of a class that can both take damage from opponents and deal high damage. The main task at the moment is to separate these areas so that the class does not turn out to be too strong.

As its said devs wanna make barb abit more of an offensive class instead of tank dummy. I very like that idea but lets look closer. In last rebalance we got some of the skills % dmg buffed but our dmg buff from combat fury was changed to accuracy buff, which made whole offensive changes less noticeable since we lost 1 kinda strong dmg buff. With the idea of making barb more offensive class we also lost some of tankiness. In the end we have a class that is way less tanky than other tanks like dk, warden or pala and do way less dmg with 2h (as a pure dmg without deff) than basically every dmg class. Tankiness and dealing dmg is already separated for barb since we need 1h to tank and 2h to deal dmg. I dont see a reason for not changing some of the skills (not making it broken) in a way i suggested in this post to slightly increase our capabilities.

I think 2h barb has too many skills that works for 1h only in current state which gives us very low variety of playstyles. 2h definitely need more usefull skills that would increase our capabilities of playstyles (and maybe variety of 2h builds aswell). 

Also i wish to see barb move from being mainly solo class with solo abilities to more guild and group friendly class which was suggested with skill changes in this post aswell. 

I hope and tried to give my ideas in balanced way to not make any skill and whole class too broken (playing broken class is boring actually and i dont want that happen to barb). Also i wish some of my suggestions can be considered and maybe in some way and form (no need to be exactly the same) implemented into the game. 

Thanks for listening! 

Edited November 13, 2023 by Mateusz